Dynasties are a natural thing, in fact the very first son to a president became president himself. That was John Quincy Adams. He was the first son born, Washington didn’t have biological children, and John Adams, the second president’s first child born was Nabby Adams, his daughter, and John Quincy was his first born son and he became president too. So at the beginning it was considered a natural thing, but there was strong opposition because he was the son of a president.

In more recent times, the media railed against it and saw it as a corruption of the democratic process. No less than Joseph Pulitzer himself publicly opposed the idea that Robert Todd Lincoln should be elected president. A lot of people thought Robert Todd Lincoln would be elected president. He was the secretary of war under two president and ambassador for the court of St. James and there was a real chance that he could have been elected president, he was extremely wealthy, he was extremely popular, like John F. Kennedy might have been if he’d lived longer.

When presidents or heads of state came to the United States, they would often visit the president and they would slip off and meet Robert Todd Lincoln, like a Bill Gates almost. But there was a fierce opposition to this whole idea. And when Robert Taft was running for president and almost had a chance to be president, that was one of the issues the media raised: we can’t have these dynasties. The dynasties that we are seeing today are an anomaly, they are not the norm. It started out a natural thing, Martin Van Buren’s son John ran for Congress, some thought he would be elected president so it keeps reoccurring, but it keeps getting shot down. Only recently have they started to emerge again.

In general, they’re bad for government. They lead to corruption in many countries of the world. The complaint is that there’s nepotism. That the dictator will give the Coca-Cola franchise to his son, give job to build the big mall to his daughter, let the telephone utility be owned by a brother, this is the complaint in many countries of the world that there is corruption and there are dynasties and families that pass on, North Korea is another prime example where three generations in a row, the leaders come from the same family. So normally, they’re very unhealthy, and that’s why the news media, in the past, has been so vigilant in shutting them down, this is a very unusual period in American history right now.

There’s an unusual reason why we have so many dynasties right now. It’s a rare time, and that’s because dynasties have appeared in both parties. So the natural opposition to dynasties has been eliminated, it’s down. For example, the Clinton dynasty in the Democratic Party, and the Bush dynasty in the Republican Party. So if you’re a Democrat, and you start attacking the Bush dynasty and saying this wasn’t wise and this isn’t fair, you’re likely going to make an enemy by embarrassing the Clintons and they are a major fundraising power, a major political power, and you can’t afford to upset the Clintons.

The same is true in the Republican Party. If you’re in the Republican Party and you start attacking the Clinton dynasty, you’re going to make enemies with the Bush family and they’re a major fundraising machine within the Republican Party. So because these two dynasties appeared at the same time, it has opened the door for the Cuomo dynasty, the Paul dynasty, there’s just no end to it. It’s like the barn door’s open and the horses are running wild. So it’s a very unique time in American history.

It's about name recognition, it’s about money. If you’re part of the dynasty, if you have the same name you already have hundreds of thousands of dollars over your opponent because of name recognition. And you already have tremendous amounts of money. George W. Bush made that quote: "I might get half of my dad’s friends and all of his enemies." He’s trying to make fun of the fact that it didn’t really help to be a Bush, but the fact is it did help to be a Bush.

It may be an imbalance that will go away on its own, I hope. I mean, I hope that eventually when there is no Republican dynasty to speak of then the Republicans will start attacking the Democrats’ dynasty, or the reverse will happen.

We see so many political dynasties for two reasons: noblesse oblige (a French phrase that means feeling of obligation on the part of the well to do to give back to society) as in the case of the Bushes or the Adams or the Roosevelts, and in the case of others it’s more of the genealogy of the family to create power. I would put the Rockefellers and the Kennedys in that category.

Dynasties come with a sense of entitlement, that the rules don’t apply. Political dynasties are also economic dynasties, and with all that power, political and economic power, comes invariably a sense of entitlement and a sense that the rules that apply to everybody else don’t apply to that family.

Chappaquiddick: I think it stands as the premier example of a family dynasty thinking that the rules do not apply to them.

The Constitution, as you know, says the government shall not confer any nobility or title. But that doesn’t prevent the free market from doing it or the electorate from doing it, so I would be against any arbitrary law that says you can’t have family successions or something like that, but I think what we need is better candidates and more ability for the candidates to directly raise funds to compete with the candidates who are part of an economic and political dynasty. Nobody could ever compete with Nelson Rockefeller because he just spent loads of his own money in New York state, or with the Kennedys for that matter because they spend millions of their own money.

What you have is a crazy system now. Citizens United was essentially correct, except it allowed, as I understand, if you’re running president, you can only raise x amount of dollars from an individual in your own name, but if I’m running a super PAC that’s supporting you for president, I can raise untold dollars in your name. That’s crazy. The individual who’s got the most at stake should have the ability to raise the money, and not people who have no responsibility and can basically use the system to harm. So we don’t need more regulations, we need less regulations. If we had more of a free market I think we’d see less political dynasties, if it’s a more free economic and political market place we have fewer dynasties.

People vote for them out of habit, stability. This is not a country that really likes radical change. We don’t like to fire presidents unless it’s something really really egregious. Since 1900 to today, we’ve have 20 some odd presidential elections and you have only a handful of situations where you could say a president was fired. The American people like stability. They don’t like radical change unless it’s really forced on them. So dynasties represent stability.

At some point I think Jeb Bush will one day run for president, he’s a young man in his early to mid 50s, and the talk of Bush grandchildren, I know his son George P., there’s talk of him running for office at some point. Republicans even more than the Democrats like stability.

There are a lot of benefits to political dynasties. But ultimately, you have to earn it on your own merits. A famous name may get people’s attention, and may open their eyes, it may open some doors, but in the end of it, every voter wants you to stand on your own two feet. Sometimes they expect even more of you than they would other candidates. It always depends on who you are and where you’re running. Oftentimes children or relatives of a politician will hold themselves to an even higher standard because and work really hard because the y know some people will be judging them for who they are and they want to make sure they prove to everyone that they’re earning it on their own. Sometimes that bar is higher for them than it is for other people, and I can’t think of anyone who hasn’t embraced that.

When Patrick Kennedy ran for Congress in Rhode Island, location helped him for two reasons. One, he went to Providence College. Two, he went to the legislature first. And three, when he ran for Congress, he made a major point of running on his own, not running as Ted Kennedy’s son, but really running as Patrick Kennedy and to be outside of that long shadow. I think in some respects, had he run in Massachusetts, it may have been harder for him, but running in Rhode Island, he was well-known there, well liked there but still made sure he showed people that he was Patrick Kennedy.

Americans obviously have a fascination with American political dynasties. They go all the way back to the Adams family. So we’ve had them throughout history, Adams, Roosevelts, Kennedys, Bushes, perhaps a Cheney, you look through the list and I think there’s a certain fascination that Americans across the country have with American political dynasties. You see that on the good side and you see that on the bad side. Many people hold them up and say it’s wonderful that many families have given so much to this country to make it a better place and we owe them of all them a gratitude. On the other hand, many times, those same people will turn around and criticize family members of one dynasty, I’m sure for partisan reasons. There’s certainly no gloves-off rule.

The one thing I think is interesting is that we’ve had American political dynasties since this country was founded. So it’s not a recent historical phenomenon, the fact that it goes back to the beginning of this country says a lot, and the fact that there have been families throughout our history who have time and time again offered up family members who have run for office, won, and served this country in a variety of capacities, I think says a lot about this country. . When you’re born into a political dynasty, people have expectations of you to run for office, and when you do people are on one measure are thrilled, and on the other measure, sometimes critical of it.

We see family members of politicians run for various reasons. The first reason is obvious: it’s like any other family with a family business. If your father is a baker then the chances are somewhat greater that you’ll become a baker than if your father is not a baker. Some people tend to go into their parents’ business because they know something about it, they may like it from what they hear around the breakfast table. Their parents’ connections are helpful to them and they’re also often encouraged to do it.

The number of political dynasties in America is really a modest number. They make up ten percent or maybe 15 percent of Congress, so that means 85 percent don’t come into Congress with close relatives leading the way. They’re also freely elected. We’re not talking about nepotism in its purist sense, somebody who’s mayor and appoints his son or somebody else to a job, rather these people have to stand for election themselves. Third is the name, the brand, which is the name that they’re born with is usually only worth one step up on the political ladder. How high that step is depends, to some degree, on what their parent’s job had been.

If that parent was the president of the United States, that step might actually be as high as the U.S. House of Representatives. Obviously if their parent is less than president, it might just be the state legislature or the city council. What happens then is, once elected, with great help because of their brand and their name, they then turn out to be on their own. So you take two people who were elected to the House of Representatives because their father was president, (Franklin) Delano Roosevelt’s sons, and in both cases they then eventually tried to run for statewide office, this is James Roosevelt in California, and Franklin Jr. in New York, and they were both defeated as it turned out. So I think it works just fine: eventually they find their own level and people are comfortable with then at that level.

I'm sure you could find lots of reasons why you didn’t want an hierocracy based on birth alone, but we use terms like hierocracy and even dynasties pretty loosely in our country. It’s pretty hard to talk seriously about a dynasty unless there are at least three generations. We use it more like a word to stick in headlines without truly being serious about it as a dynasty.

The Bushes are a fairly interesting one. Why? Because there was only one Bush, Prescott who was a back-bench senator from Connecticut, so they can be fast-rising. You take his son, George H.W. Bush, if he were really terribly dynastically inclined, he would probably have stayed in Connecticut and run for office. That’s usually how it is, they have their own territory where their name has a particular value. He moved to Texas, and eventually ran for office but not because he was the son of Prescott Bush. When he got there he had a selection of sons who were interested, but the strange thing about it is the one who succeeded him in the presidency, George W., really, if you look at his early history, was very disinclined to continue in politics, many people thought it was Jeb who would be the next Bush elected. So I’ve always thought of the Bush’s up to that point as being a very unnatural dynasty. It wasn’t as if generation after generation they were a driving force to be in politics, they almost got into it accidentally. Now I think that’s no longer true, Jeb has a son who seems to be interested, and they’re on their way as a dynasty. But each one truly has to make it on their own.

It's often not easy to be the child of a famous person, especially if that person is the president of the United States. John Adams had one son, John Quincy Adams who became president and then another son who committed suicide, and that is often the case as well, so it’s not an unalloyed blessing to be the child of a famous person, whether that person is in politics or in movies.

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